


You Ought To Come With A Warning Label

by Senket



Series: House Dynamics [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John coming over only means one thing: Sherlock showing off. And when Sherlock shows off, he stops paying attention to the minute details. You know, the ones that stop his potion from bubbling over and going all wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Ought To Come With A Warning Label

Happily ensconced in bed, kept company by the soft whisper of turning pages and the ancient words of the alchemist Zosimus, Mycroft read. He’d gone through inestimable trouble getting this tome out of the great school of Alexandria, right in the centre of the Egyptian wizarding world, and he intended to consume and enjoy every precious word; but of course, a man like Mycroft always had a list of priorities, and it so happened that Gregory Lestrade was always at the top of his list. Mostly, at least; Sherlock occasionally wrestled for the first slot, mostly by getting himself into increasingly unlikely and outright ridiculous spots of trouble. Mummy, of course, was quite near the top as well, but she had moved to the country with Sherringford once Mycroft’s elder brother had returned from Africa, which eased his mind greatly. And so, when his partner lumbered into their bedroom and collapsed face-first on the mattress beside him with nary a thought to removing his cloak or even his mud-encrusted boots, Mycroft placed a flat serpent bookmark between the pages of his ancient tome and settled it on the bedside table. He slid out from under the warm down into the comparatively chill room to help Gregory Lestrade sit up, kneeling down to unlace his boots as the other man stared blearily down at him.

“Long day, then?” he teased softly, sitting beside Greg to help him remove his cloak and robes.

“You could say that,” the auror answered, mouth flattened into a line. “Gave me tomorrow off.”

“That’s lucky.”

“Required, more like.”

“No,” he answered with a shake of his head, “I mean it’s lucky because I need to go in early tomorrow and John Watson is coming over at ten.”

Greg mulled it over for a moment, too tired to properly process- his eyebrows shot up, and he leaned back to give Mycroft a look. The younger man only laughed. “Yes, that, exactly.” Mycroft laughed at Greg’s answering groan and shuttled him off to go brush his teeth.

Gregory woke slowly, down blankets fluffed around him in a sort of nest. He could only vaguely remember falling asleep, curled up with his face half-hidden under the covers, shielding his eyes from the augmented light of Mycroft’s reading candles as the younger man returned to his Ancient Alchemy. Mycroft was gone now, hardly a surprising affair considering the sharp gleam of mid-day light coming in from the southern windows.

Greg rolled over to stare at the ceiling, contemplating lunch as his stomach informed him why, exactly, he had woken up. He noticed then the odd, green-tinged gelatinous-looking stain above him as it slowly expanded, cocking his head to the side with a quizzical frown. After a moment it seemed to contract; a pure, round drop of sage-green liquid detached itself, falling onto Mycroft’s pillow with a wet plot. Nothing happened for a moment. Then Greg was assailed with the surprisingly strong odour of hellebore and belladonna; the pillow smouldered quietly for a moment before it rose upwards with an uncertain tremble. It hovered a foot above the bed for a moment before, apparently coming to a decision, it shot up and met the ceiling, itself absorbing the stain until it became a pleasant sage-green colour as well.

Everything was fine for a moment, but then a single drop darker and greener than the rest detached itself and met the mattress. A pause, and then that uncertain mid-air wobble. Greg threw himself out of bed just before it shot upwards to meet its kin, now lying in a tangle of covers beside the bare bones of what had been his sleeping place a minute ago. He’d forgotten what day it was, obviously. _Obviously._ Throwing on the first thing he got his hands on, he stomped out into the stairwell of the three-story flat they’d gotten on Baker Street last year, shouting up the landing.

“SHERLOCK! SHERLOCK, DAMN YOU, GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT.”

The sixteen year old boy appeared on the top stair with an irritated frown, jamming his bony fingers through tangled curls. “What?”

“Don’t you what me,” he scolded, assaulted with that feeling that told him he was going to turn grey before he turned thirty. “Your experiments are restricted to the ground floor- AND. As you know. You are not allowed to experiment when John’s over.” Had John ever asked, Mycroft would have given him a very conscientious explanation of how Sherlock’s experiments sometimes caused some very unusual and perhaps dangerous side effects, and that they simply didn’t want to deal with a minor they had no charge over getting caught up in it, and about how John’s parents would be very cross. Sherlock knew why the rule really existed, but he was far too embarrassed by it to tell John that he tended to get too distracted trying to impress the boy to keep a proper eye on what he was doing.

Sherlock at least had the decency to look annoyed that he had been caught out, crossing his arms. “John’s only been here an hour. It’s not my fault the potion wasn’t done simmering.”

“I don’t think it’s been an hour, Sherlock,” he deadpanned, leaning against the doorway with a quirked eyebrow.

“How should you know?” he answered with his nose in the air, sniffing in an incredulously snotty way. “You’ve been asleep all this time.”

“Because, _Sherlock_ , my mattress has turned green and it is falling in love with my ceiling!”

Sherlock only frowned, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. “Huh. It’s not supposed to do that.”

“Sherlock!”

“Oh, hey there Greg!” John popped out over the landing, the boy waving cheerily down at the auror. “You’re awake.” The Hufflepuff had a smear of marmite on his chin, and Lestrade didn’t miss the way Sherlock was glowering jealously at the piece of toast in John’s grip. John clearly hadn’t noticed either, happily jamming the toast back in his mouth as he disappeared back into Sherlock’s bedroom.

Greg groaned, head in his hands.

Children were strange.

He’d be seventy before he was thirty, at this rate.


End file.
